Another Podcast Reaction: Secret Wars Edition

This week on the podcast, the Gabbingest of Geeks stopped to discuss the fact that they took the podcast’s birthday off.

Lazy goofs.

They also discussed time travel.  But I covered my time travel thoughts a long time ago, so I am not doing that again any time soon.  Besides, it looks like Jimmy is covering the time travel stuff just judging from his title, so I’ll leave it be.

Instead, let me say a few things about the current Secret Wars.

OK, as regular readers to this site know, I did a longish series chronicling how Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers stuff led to the current Secret Wars.  I could link up the seven or eight parts, but I’m far too lazy to do that, so just search for the tag “Road to Secret Wars” if you really care for quality, Wikipedia-style plot summaries.

Jimmy, meanwhile, is covering all the Secret Wars books.  He’s doing a fine job there, so I won’t say much more than that.

But man, Ryan bungled the explanation for Secret Wars.  Someone kept interrupting him and expressing derision, sure, so I’m not sure how much of the blame should go to Ryan, and how much should go to someone else.

So, here’s a quick run-down from me on the whole Secret Wars thing.

As Ryan said, Doom stole power from the Beyonders to build Battleworld.  As far as most people on Battleworld are concerned, Doom is God and always has been.  Dr. Strange knows it’s only been 8 years, and he knows how Doom got that way.  So does the Molecule Man.  No one else does.  Doom is God, the Invisible Woman is his consort, Reed Richards’ kids are his kids, Galactus is his doorman, Strange is the sheriff, and there’s a police force made up of Thors.

Each zone is different, and many are getting their own mini-series.  The various mini-series are largely self-contained.  Thors and Siege are not.  Some others might not be.  If you want to skip the main series, you can probably read any of the other mini-series.  Some are better than others.  Many are named after old Marvel storylines, but are not continuations of those stories.  They’re stories in-name-only.  That suits me fine.  I was never much of an Iron Man fan and have never read Armor Wars, but the Secret Wars mini called Armor Wars doesn’t seem to have much of anything to do with the original beyond the title.  Same with Marvel Zombies, Siege, Planet Hulk, and a host of others.  Years of Future Past sort of is a continuation of the original storyline, but it kinda stinks.

I also didn’t care much for X-Men’92, which is based off the 90s cartoon series, not the 90s era of X-Men.  That distinction is a bit important.

The only one that plays as a real sequel to the original is Old Man Logan, but Marvel has a summary page for all their comics so new readers can have at least an inkling of what’s going on.  That’s different from DC’s recent Convergence, which actually were more continuations of lost time lines.  The Marvel minis here are often more creative works.  I’ve found that rarely has there been an instance where knowing an old storyline was essential to getting the series, though knowing a bit about the Marvel universe might allow for greater appreciation.  The series aren’t even all superhero stories.  Weirdworld is sword-and-sorcery, 1872 is a Western, and Master of Kung Fu is martial arts.

Point is, you can skip the main series and still enjoy a lot of this stuff.  And, quite frankly, I’ve found much of it fun.  You know, if you like comics.  If you don’t, you probably shouldn’t bother.

By the way, I am not sure which is more pathetic:  Watson being scarily good at box office totals, or Jenny being so scarily bad at The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.